For those of you who are tired of doing hundreds of situps and crunches for your abdomen only to find you have been thickening your waistline, perhaps it is time to take a different approach with The Matthews Method. Having lost two inches off my own waistline from these exercises, I can testify to their effectiveness.
There are NO SITUPS and NO CRUNCHES. Instead, you will learn an entirely new way to work the most important abdominal structures, the Transversus Abdominus and as a side benefit, the Back Extensors. Together, these muscles make up the "scaffolding" of your torso, making it strong and toned. It is a myth that the Rectus Abdominus ("situps muscles") is primarily what makes the torso strong.
Many people erroneously believe that if you do a lot of situps and crunches working the Rectus Abdominus, that they, combined with some back strengthening exercises will make the entire torso strong. This is inaccurate; it is the Transversus plus the back muscles that will make a strong torso.
These exercises were created using concepts that dancers often use to flatten their abdomens and narrow their waistlines, using different muscles than situps and crunches use. They REALLY DO work. In my fitness studio (I own "Island Fitness Studio" on Seabrook Island on the coast of South Carolina), after close to 20 years of teaching fitness classes, I have taught NO SITUPS NOR CRUNCHES for 3 years! Instead, the following exercises have been used exclusively at my Studio - with great success. WHY THESE ARE THE BEST ABS AND TORSO WORK YOU CAN DO!
Now, instructors all over the country and the world have been changing their methods for tightening, toning, strengthening and narrowing the abdominal area, and it's available to you too.